Don was going well until close to the end, when he stooped to irrationally and without reason or evidence smeared climate scientists.

Thus, he exposed his true anti-science goal.

Posted by JohnBennetts, Wednesday, 13 February 2013 1:37:12 PM

This author overvalues his own opinions.

'policy-based evidence-making'? you mean, as opposed to unsupported aspersions against natural scientists from a social researcher?

However, I am starting to understand how our universities and granting systems got into the state they are currently in.

Posted by Bugsy, Wednesday, 13 February 2013 2:16:37 PM

Don was doing particularly well, especially the last paragraph where he truly excelled, providing the perfect example of the 'politicisation' of research.

I think the vast sum spent researching the 'pathology' of those who may slightly disagree with a proposed 'thesis' is also a very good example of universities overreaching their own self importance. And then, further moneys being spent on further 'exellent' research exploring the reaction of people to the results of the previous research! truly a money train, just jump aboard. I believe this may also be what Don is refering to.

Uh oh.. Don. You may have started another of those monkey wrench posts you insist on hurling into the ring!

Posted by Prompete, Wednesday, 13 February 2013 5:18:24 PM

I have to wonder, sometimes.

Does Prompete have an example of the kind of chain reaction research he refers to, or is it just imaginery; a product of preconception, amplified by a desire to rant?

Really? Studies to research the reaction of people to the results of the previous research? The other leg whistles.

On reflection, perhaps Prompete has a point. Don Aitken could well be pulling our legs and doesn't believe a word that he has written.

Maybe this is the result of a long, wide ranging discussion by the campfire after a bushwalk with a few like-minded stirrers.

Posted by JohnBennetts, Wednesday, 13 February 2013 5:57:25 PM

JohnBennets. Research on depunked previous research results. Lewandowski.

However he is mistaken in thinking that the problems he describes, with deciding what research or researchers to fund, are in the nature of research per se. Rather, these problems are entirely in the nature of any service provision by government. All the imponderables he discusses about knowing what research to fund are just specific examples of generic problems afflicting all governmental decision-making.

The fact is that, once a means of production is socialised, there is no rational way - rational in terms of the evaluations of the consumers of the service - of knowing whether the scarce means are being allocated to society's most urgent and important wants.

This is what's known as the economic calculation problem. It's why socialism doesn't and can't work.

Where services are provided by voluntary transactions, there is a direct connection between the evaluation of the buyer as to what will satisfy their most urgent and important felt needs, and the good or service provided. The prices thus formed, send price signals all the way up the line of production to form the prices for the factors of production. Thus the entire structure of production emerges from, and is subject to, the decisions of the masses - society.

But where services are provided by coerced transactions, including all government, that connection is severed at the root. There is no possibility of a rational connection to the service of society's wants, but only mere arbitrary opinion. These are based on political patronage, and feel-good slogans that are ultimately rationally imponderable as Don describes. To imagine this scramble for plunder by vested interests is the foundation of objective knowledge is touchingly naive.

The only reason that "the peers" are given the job of deciding what research to fund, is because government-funded research presupposes that the taxpayers and consumers should not be permitted to decide! This only shows the totally *unscientific* assumption that the funding should be coerced rather than voluntary!